Day one -
Our road trip vacation started with a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine. Getting to St. Stephen was the fastest part of the trip - but then things got bogged down at the border crossing to Calais, Maine. I'm guessing it was partially because of the long weekend in Canada but the wait-time at the St. Stephen/Calais crossing was around 2 hours in line in the scorching heat to get across to the US side.

Once across, the drive down to Bar Harbor was pretty uneventful. It's a pretty drive along Route 9 (the Airline route) which is somewhat shorter than the even prettier Coastal Route (Rte 1) and Bar Harbor is a lovely resort town.

Because we were trying to go the economical route (read cheap) we decided to forego motels and hotels for camping, which is also fun if a little rougher around the edges. We stayed at the KOA Woodlands which was a lovely site but a little too buggy with mosquitos. But camping can be a lot of fun - campfires, cooking on the coleman stove, sleeping outdoors in a tent. It's great ... until it rains (but I get ahead of myself here). Campfires are the best part of the evening but beware of "seasoned" wood which must be camper code for "soaked in pine resin" which results in a conflagration of alarming proportions. The wood was encased in a sheet of flame and was freaking bubbling. It probably wouldn't have been too big of a deal had the fire ring been placed further away from the stand of trees.

Observations: food tastes better cooked and eaten outside; campfires, marshmallows and beer go together most excellently.